Catalyst with Shayle Kann

The nuclear power sector is gaining a lot of momentum. But even as SMRs continue to flourish, the Department of Energy’s reactor pilot program moves forward, and decommissioned plants come back online, the question of what to do with nuclear waste has largely stayed out of the spotlight. The U.S. currently houses 90,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel; as more plants come online, that number could rise dramatically. 

In this episode, Shayle speaks to Dr. Jen Shafer, a former ARPA-E director and current professor at the Colorado School of Mines, to learn more about waste itself, and how to dispose of — or recycle it — as the industry evolves.

The two cover topics like:

The physical and chemical composition of spent nuclear fuel

Short-term versus long-term hazards of waste

The stalled disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada

Wet versus dry storage methods for nuclear waste

The strategies for managing the waste from advanced reactors

The “take back” model for managing microreactor waste

Resources


Catalyst: The path to market for new nuclear reactors


Catalyst: The US nuclear groundswell


Open Circuit: Inside Meta’s massive nuclear push


Open Circuit: Fear and loathing at the Department of Energy


Latitude Media: What TerraPower’s big milestone says about future nuclear projects


Latitude Media: Commonwealth Fusion Systems launches digital twin with Nvidia and Siemens


Latitude Media: Trump Media’s bizarre fusion play for TAE Technologies

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Despite the dark cloud of federal policy hanging over the solar industry, skyrocketing load growth is driving demand. The question is whether supply can keep up.

In this episode, Shayle talks to Scott Moskowitz — VP of market strategy and public affairs at Qcells and board chair of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) — about the challenges of reshoring solar in the U.S.

They cover topics like:

How supply chain resilience incentivize reshoring efforts

The specific state of polysilicon, wafers, cells, and module reshoring

Why resource “clustering” has been a boon for Chinese solar manufacturing

Industry challenges around permitting solar

Why American solar remains so much more expensive per watt than Chinese solar

The threat of technological obsolescence to funding solar projects

Resources


Catalyst: More 2026 trends: Solar costs, oil oversupply, and the startup slump


Catalyst: Tumult in residential solar


Open Circuit: Does residential solar have a bad product?


Latitude Media: GlassPoint is back, and armed with global expansion plans


Latitude Media: Tesla’s rooftop solar paradox


Latitude Media: Can the US bring solar installation to below $2 per watt?

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

As demand for data center power skyrockets, available options to provide that power have dwindled. And cohesive frameworks for finding sustainable generation remain few and far between.

In this episode, Shayle speaks with Jake Elder, senior vice president of research and innovation at Energy Impact Partners. The two colleagues dig into the four main generation solutions — on grid, off grid, on edge, and off planet – and consider the viability of each in the years to come.

Shayle and Jake explore topics like:

A ten year forecast: Jake’s prediction for how the global "compute pie" will get split up between these four pathways

Jake’s skepticism around whether a shift towards on-device compute can scale effectively

The worsening bottleneck facing on-grid connection

Building “shock absorbers” into the infrastructure of off-grid data centers that enable them to maintain “five nines[a][b][c]” of reliability

The feasibility of making orbital data centers affordable

The logistics behind creating radiators “the size of a small town” to dissipate heat from orbital data centers

Resources:


Catalyst: PJM and ERCOT are navigating a capacity rollercoaster


Catalyst: Will inference move to the edge?


Catalyst: Who benefits from the AI power bottleneck?


Open Circuit: Are investors losing faith in the AI infrastructure frenzy?


Open Circuit: The White House AI power pledge: Political theater or policy?


Latitude Media: The data center boom is a diesel generator boom


Latitude Media: How Hitachi became a speed-to-power company

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson, Anne Bailey, and Sean Marquand. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.

Can a grid operator tell the difference between a virtual power plant and a traditional one?

That’s the idea behind the Huels Test, a framework developed by EnergyHub to answer a simple but consequential question: when does a distributed fleet of customer devices become reliable enough to function like a power plant?

Passing the test means more than just aggregating thermostats or batteries. It means delivering predictable, repeatable performance that utility planners and operators trust enough to rely on during system peaks. And it’s no longer theoretical.

During a series of brutal winter cold snaps across the Southeast this year, Duke Energy leaned on tens of thousands of connected devices — smart thermostats, batteries, and water heaters — to help manage record-breaking winter peaks. Together, they formed a virtual power plant that the utility could dispatch when the grid was tight.

In this Frontier Forum, Stephen Lacey talks with Stacy Phillips, Managing Director of Customer Load Management at Duke Energy, and Seth Frader-Thompson, president and co-founder of EnergyHub, about the spectrum of virtual power plants.

They discuss how VPPs are evolving from traditional demand-response programs into operational grid resources, and what still needs to change before utilities treat them exactly like conventional power plants.

This conversation was recorded live as part of Latitude Media’s Frontier Forum with EnergyHub. Watch the full video here.

EnergyHub works with more than 160 utilities across North America to build and scale virtual power plants using its Edge DERMS platform. Read EnergyHub's white paper outlining the VPP maturity model and discover what VPPs can do for your grid.

Despite its ability to deliver ample carbon-free energy, the potential of geothermal and EGS is limited by the number of drilling sites close enough to the earth’s surface.

But a few pioneering companies have landed on a potential solution: dig way deeper.

In this episode, Shayle speaks with Carlos Araque, the founder of Quaise Energy. The company has developed millimeter-wave drills to vaporize rock, allowing them to dig up to twelve miles underground in search of water around 800 degrees Fahrenheit. That super hot and "supercritical" water packs a huge punch: ten times more energy density than traditional geothermal.

Shayle and Carlos explore a range of topics, including:

Why 800 degree water is the “ideal” temperature for deep geothermal

How "activating" permeability in deep rock differs from traditional fracking

The state of Quaise’s Oregon project pilot, including their goal of a commercial-grade flow test by the end of 2026

How the LCOE of super hot geothermal compares to traditional baseload energy sources

Resources


Catalyst: How geothermal gets built


Open Circuit: Is this geothermal’s breakout moment?


Latitude Media: Armed with $115 million, geothermal startup Zanskar gets ready to build


Green Blueprint: Sage Geosystems’ bet on geothermal energy storage


Latitude Media: Fervo’s Tim Latimer is ‘bullish’ on DOE funding for geothermal

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com.